1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to waste disposal, and more particularly to apparatus and method for collection, transport and disposal of the type of waste typically known as garbage or trash, and hereinafter referred to generally as refuse.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Refuse collection has been handled for many years in various ways, some of them relatively simple and others more complex. The simpler procedures involve collection in cans or drums at residential or light commercial sites. The cans are then dumped into trash trucks which have means for lightly compacting the trash into a compartment as the truck moves along. At the disposal site, the compartment is dumped by a mechanism having some similarities to dump trucks.
A slightly more complex system involves the use of relatively large bins at commercial or industrial sites and which are hauled bodily onto a truck or trailer bed and then transported thereby to the dump site, where they are dumped.
The dumping site is typically a landfill. Landfill operation are coming under increasing scrutiny due to the discovery that many of them have been used as depositories for hazardous waste products. Even where such products are containerized, there have been many instances where the containers have ruptured or corroded and the hazardous materials have leached out into and through the ground. For those hazardous waste products which have not been containerized, there is nothing to prevent them from leaching directly into the soil. In some cases, particularly with new landfills, an effort has been made to avoid the passage of leacheate into the ground, by lining the landfill with some impervious product such as a rubber membrane. Such a technique may cost on the order of an extra $100,000 per acre of landfill. In addition, there is no certainty that there will not be punctures or tears such as to compromise the effectiveness of the rubber lining. Accordingly, there is very little certainty that the leacheate problem will be avoided, even in such landfills.
Considering the space and volume required for landfills, there has been considerable attention given t the possibility of making packaging for various consumable products out of biodegradable materials. Similarly, some trash bags are being made of biodegradable material. However, it has been found that some such materials do not degrade in the absence of sunlight. If that is the case, the volume required by such materials in a landfill, does not significantly decrease in any reasonable period of time.
Finally, although there have been efforts to do some recycling of waste materials, such techniques are still relatively impractical, since they are neither totally effective nor are they reasonably economical. Moreover, there is not seen any real likelihood of significant progress in the future in that regard.
The present invention is addressed to refuse management according to a different concept.